Belief

This one is for the most charming lady in my life, who means to me more than anything else. She just happened to ask me, about love. I quote her words “Some people are like, they love one person for long time, then when it breaks, they find another one and within short time, they feel that it is their great love. If they are clear regarding it or just satisfying themselves”. It seems very interesting to me and I am sure a lot of people might have gone through this dilemma or thought once in a while about themselves, their friends or someone in neighborhood, falling in love second time.

Love is a feeling that keeps you attached with someone and you care for that person, romantically involve with that person and you want to spend the rest of your life with that person. Love is an incredible feeling, capable of moving through space and time (read Interstellar here). Love is just a feeling after all. And feelings are inside your head. You can fool yourself and your brain will fool you as well. There is some conscious fooling and there is a lot of subconscious fooling happening inside of your head every single moment.

Consciously you keep saying to yourself, like this is going to be a great day, it tastes wonderful, this is my love, this is a great job, I am doing great, I will be fine and so on. This constant talk with self, when things are not so great, is something you consciously fool yourself. Sub-consciously or unconsciously your brain is fooling every time, mind you, it fools you every single time. Whatever blue, green, red you see might not be so. All is what your brain wants you to believe. Alright so now that it is clear that how everything is at time unsubstantial and surreal.

So back to the dilemma. You have been loving a person for a very long time and somehow you do not happen to be with that person, then you find someone else and you feel this is your love of life and forever. A thing that has to be very very clearly understood, that this is no universal law of motion. It is more of quantum physics. This is mere an explanation and there is possibility for an exception and variance. When someone says they have been in love with a person for very long time, it totally depends on what and how they pursue the definition and feeling of love. OK, they might be in the dilemma in the very first instance itself. In their understanding for what is love. Second it would definitely depend on the reason why they are not together anymore. Was it your decision, was it your partners, was it a mutual decision or it was never decided but it just happened. This matters a lot, since this gives a space and reason for how love will be pursued and sought out in the next encounter.

Just an example, I am a girl, I live in a metro city, I have been in love with my boyfriend since college and when job happened, we couldn’t be together anymore. We tried to continue the relationship for an year or so, but it was getting down on me very hard and he used to curse me all the time. We broke up. May be I broke up. I found a new guy at my job, who was considerate, sweet, understanding, matured and very smart. Things happened and we were in love in a year. Life has never been better, in all this years. We are together for the last 3 years and we will be married soon. This is the love of my life and I am glad. History I do not even remember my ex-boyfriend.

So this is one could often say about what they think about their love. Love is a belief in your heart oops in your head. Well, biologically my charming lady, it might be possible that the brain is fooling. You see, survival instincts and growth, made us develop this way. To believe in something that is necessary for our long living. So if they believe they are having the love of their life and if they are true to themselves at every moment of the day, night and in sleep, then it is true, else it is not. So for me to say if that is possible, well hell yeah, mathematically even if the possibility is very very less, we would still say it is possible. Biologically, we will have to screen them through ECG and what not. So for the best of everyone’s interest, believe what they say and support them. For if you happen to be in that situation, believe in your love and do what makes you happy.

Long post cut short, quoting Titanic “A woman’s heart is a deep ocean of secrets“. To completely and clearly describe every possibility I might need a book, after all quantum theories cannot be explained within a post.

There is a lot of confusion with the subject and I am unable to find a clear understanding on the terminologies used in various languages. Also there is no clear understanding as to what determines them to be placed into such category and how is it determined. It might be my own limited knowledge on the subject or the taboo in the society I live, that I couldn’t get a clear understanding about it. I have however tried to get some knowledge online, which seems to be even more confusing given the variety of physical deviations that can exist apart from ‘male’ and ‘female’ physiology.

However, I am not going to dwell on the physical aspect of it, since I am in no position to state any view without complete or adequate knowledge. I will prefer to tell about the interactions of Hijras in Indian Society and general life and how & when they are seen in day to day life.

The first and the foremost question however that strikes in my mind is where do they go during their childhood and teenage. How they appear suddenly into society when they are young adults. You would often see them in the following occasions when there is a new born in some family. They would visit the house, do lots of songs and dancing, bless the child, take some money and leave the place. They would also visit if someone buys a new house. They would mark the visit by placing their (amazing) names on the walls of the entrance and they would take some money in return giving blessings. During some weddings in few parts of the country, they are specially invited for certain rituals, dancing, songs and blessings.

Majorly however, they are observed mostly in Indian Railways. It is life-line of many Hijras. They would go from person to person in every coach and give blessings. In return they expect some money. Some are generous enough to give them money, while others fear their curses and hence give money. Many of the hijras are very harsh to people and they try to exploit the travellers asking for undue money, even when they are not ready to give. During festival seasons, they try to collect huge money, by harassing the ongoers and passengers. Even in every locality, they go from home to home to collect Diwali, Holi chanda and make their living.

Some of the people who go through bad experiences with Hijras, they wish if the law or police could take some action. But I believe it is a unspoken understanding between the society and Hijras, that you take away the privileges from our life and rights to live alongside the society and in return we get to be demanding and harsh in certain situations. Also since they are deprived of all the education and options for employment, it is silent agreement that people would be providing money for survival.

Somehow it seems to be really unfair on the part of treating some human, so cruelly for life time. There have been some lucky Hijras lately, who have been treated fairly, but a very large part of the Hijra community is treated very unfair. I believe it is the question on the moral fiber, social acceptance and emotional quotient of every human (male/female), that they need to think on the reason for unfair treatment to Hijras. Having said that this post has got nothing to do with the LGBT community. It is purely based on the observations and terminology used in India for the people (Hijras) whom we see in day to day life on the occasions or scenarios mentioned above.

One recent experience that I had last week while travelling in Mumbai Local, involved a really high caliber Hijra. She would go to every compartment and face towards the people sitting and give them blessings in Hindi and repeat the same in English. Her voice would certainly sound how considerate she was in choosing the words. She would repeat saying that she doesn’t want to force anyone to give money and irrespective of whether or not they give the money, her blessings would apply. She was dressed really well and had a make up with kajal/mascara in her eyes. Her hair was straightened out. So yeah, she irrespective of the world choosing to deprive of her rights, she was being a humble human trying to make her living somehow. I was totally impressed by her charisma.

Note : I chose to use ‘she’, because she closely represented a woman. I am not sure if it should be he/she or it ! I will let you read as way you would want.

So I would like to ask you, who is having moral fiber, was it her or us ? Are we being a part of some social taboo without even acknowledging ? Are we so called social animals, proving the animal part in us is still intact ? Are we humans, with humanity in a calculated fashion ? Is it all just a shame in the name of morality, humanity, emotional feelings ? What are we being in a so called culturally developed humans ?

Note :There are even more harsh realities about Hijras in society. I would dwell on those aspects only when I get some valid information and when I am in a stage to post about it. This has been kept PG for anyone to read. There might be other rated versions.

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I am starting a new series, where I will be explaining various traditions, especially in India and my understanding behind those traditions. This are solely my understanding and beliefs and do not represent any affirmation to the beliefs or events that occur in India. It may be agreed or disagreed upon what I say and I will be happy to know different views on the traditions or any additions to the same, so please feel free to comment.

Why do girls cry during vidai विदाई(farewell after wedding) ? What is the significance !

There are many rituals connected to weddings, be it as per the location or the religious beliefs of a person. India being a diverse country, we find the diversity in the way weddings are conducted across the country and there are many rituals associated with wedding. Be it any state or caste, the ritual of vidai, the farewell of girl from her parents to her in-laws, is definitely seen everywhere.

So after the wedding ceremony where the bride and groom take oath of living together for the rest of life and once all the attendees have filled their tummy, the ceremony of vidai starts. In this often the girl cries a lot, because she is to leave her parents house for the rest of her life and be associated with in-laws, which eventually will become her own family. She cries over the shoulder of her parents, siblings, relatives and takes blessing from everyone for peace and harmony for the phase 2 of life. It is a very emotional event, where mostly all the females present at the occasion, will be shredding tears remembering her or her daughters farewell.

Now the best part ! Why to cry and what is this all about ? Well, as humans started to live in society and as we grew to form families, weddings, localities etc etc, we brought it some norms, some principals based on psychology, medicine, weather, seasons, economics. This principals or norms were placed over the period of time in the form of customs, traditions or rituals, which were then sipped into religion to make it a form of emotional, devotional and spiritual mandate in some cases.

Now technically, crying relaxes your brain and you feel light at heart. When someone cries their heart out, like cry out loud and reach to a start of near mourning, every emotions get drained out from the heart and head, via the eyes in the form of tears. Secondly, a girl who has lived her whole life with her family, gets married and goes to a unknown family. Again technically, these rituals came up as a part of society where arranged marriage was very popular or was the only means to marriage. Back then, most of the times, the girl would be seeing the boy for the first time and her first day in the in-laws will be really like putting a rabbit in the cage surrounded by fox (Just an expression, don’t take it to heart !).

So emotionally, she has a very strong bond with her family and to let go that becomes a very big task and unless the bond is broken, it would be really difficult to associate with the new family. Well, I believe the scholars back then knew this very well or may be from their experiences they realized this. By experiences, I mean when villagers used to see problems, they used to go to Panchayat (Village Heads). In Panchayat, detailed discussions used to be made from both parties and the heads would decide what is best for them. Also from the learning of the event they would bring new rules/norms/practices in the village and we know well that villages make the society or a country on the whole.

So the ritual of vidai, where the girl cries her heart out to let go of the bonding with family and free her heart for new space to accept the new people/family and emotions into her heart came up. This ritual was placed right after the wedding ceremony so it marks the end of phase one and embarks the start of phase two.

I hope you liked the view I have about this and let me know what you think about the vidai ceremony. Feel free to comment if you have different views or opinion. Thank you. Cheers.

The post doesn’t promote that girl should cry neither does it promote that girl should leave or let go of her parents/family. Post just focus on how the ritual might have come up and what is the psychological aspect behind that.